Seven solar power and wind power projects, with a combined capacity of 5 GW, have been fast-tracked by the Obama administration as part of the We Can't Wait initiative. The projects, located in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Wyoming are expected to produce electricity sufficient to power 1.5 million homes.

In Arizona, the Mohave Wind Energy project, will be located on nearly 40,000 acres of federal land in Mohave County, Arizona. The 425 MW project is targeted to complete federal permitting in January 2013. The Quartzite Solar Energy project will have a capacity of 100 MW on 1675 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Federal review of the project is expected to be completed in December of this year.

California will see two projects fast-tracked: The 150 MW Desert Harvest Solar Energy project in Riverside County, and the 750 MW McCoy Solar Energy project, also in Riverside County. Both projects are expected to have review completed by December of this year.

Nevada's projects: The Moapa Solar Energy Center, composed of 100 MW of concentrating solar power and 100 MW of solar photovoltaics, located on 2000 acres on the Moapa River Indian Reservation; and, the Silver State South solar power project, 350 MW of solar PV on slightly over 13,000 acres of public land. The former is expected to complete the federal review process by December 2012, the latter by March 2013.

Wyoming's windfall is the Chokecherry/Sierra Madre Wind Energy project. A truly huge wind power project at 3 GW in capacity, on 230,000 acres in Carbon County. Approvals for the first part of the project will be completed in October 2012, the second at sometime in 2014.

Military Land Opened Up For Renewable Energy DevelopmentSeparate from these fast-tracked projects, the Departments of Interior and Defense have opened up 16 million acres of federal land, previously set aside for military testing and training, for wind and solar power development, Renewable Energy World reports.